When Ray Burns of South Norwood put them on, he became Captain Sensible.

The Captain played bass guitar in a punk group called the Damned. On stage, things got manic. The Captain's trademark image protected him from showers of spit.

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Captain Sensible

Captain Sensible was a member of The Damned:

"We were a bunch of spotty oiks, basically four yobby blokes who were pretty anti-social. It was demented, lunatic, insane. It was so fast and so violent-looking. We were drunk most of the time that nobody could really believe us."

"One of the most unfortunate aspects of punk was that people used to spit at you on stage. And The Damned have been accused of starting that, rightly or wrongly. You'd get covered in it. I didn't like it in me hair, so I thought I'd wear a hat. And of course it's not very nice having gob in your eyes, so eventually it evolved into a beret and glasses.

It was practical on stage. But it became a trademark. "

"I think my mum and dad only stopped saying, 'Get a job', when then they saw me on the telly and then they thought, 'Maybe there is something in all this'.

After that it was madness. We lived in a tiny house in South Norwood and we'd get all the blinking press round, banging on the door wanting some quote about this or that.

I enjoyed that celebrity to a certain extent 'cos working class people don't usually get the voice, and I used it

whether people liked it or not"

Playing in a punk band

Life was looking pretty dull for Ray Burns in the early 1970s. He'd left school, tried a few jobs and was working as toilet cleaner at the Fairfield Halls.

It was there that he met Chris Miller. The two of them got into the West London music scene. Their band, The Damned, became one of the major punk bands of the time. Captain Sensible was born!

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